


Yfere

by Lavender_Seaglass



Series: And then came the rest [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, canon bits, re-introductions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Seaglass/pseuds/Lavender_Seaglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucina, having already lived several years in the past, finally reveals herself to a mother and father she hasn't touched in almost a decade. It's not too little too late, not just yet, she thinks, because although she's already failed to divert her future, she still has a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> From here on out, this series will be set in game canon, specifically the latter half of the game.

The area is abandoned. Or, like most of the island, it was never settled, so the absence of other life is not to be explained by the early hour, but by other reasons altogether. It could to be a consequence, Robin thinks, of life having fled before death. There are no remains of the Risen. They don't leave bodies to re-decompose when defeated. Yet they were here, they came after Chrom's group or were summoned in anticipation of their coming. Whatever the case, there was a battle here and now the place remains silenced.

And stilled. The pall of stillness is apparent when Robin casts a stone from atop the dam into the dried up riverbed below. The action echoes and echoes, announcing her impudence to the crumbling forts that hold guard over this dead canyon. She suddenly feels embarrassed for her indiscreet noise-making. There are no others, but she's a witness to her own foolishness.

To ease some of the stress, she moves closer to where Marth and Chrom have disappeared off to. That's also stressing her out, but there's a mystery about it too. Her mind engages with that, so that she's more intrigued than anxious about the current engimatic state of things.

 _Father_. Marth—she—had called Chrom that twice. Robin can't help but think back to that incident in the courtyard two years and some months ago. The saving of Chrom—her husband—and the (accidental) revelation of Marth's sex. The resultant salvation of the exalt, no matter how temporary. These incidents of now and then are connected, obviously: these are two times that Marth has saved him. But are they similar in other ways as well? There's something obvious she's missing.

Robin chews her lip as she walks. As she gets closer to their secluded spot she begins to hear the river running. If anyone could tell if there are any similarities between the two times, it should be her, who was witness to both. And yet she cannot put her finger on it. Clearly these are more than chance rescues: Marth had _known_. And she doesn't seem to be in the service of Validar, that doesn't strike Robin as even a remote possibility. Validar could never be subtle enough for that, Robin thinks, her mind still struggling with the lurid image of her physical double witnessed not so long ago. (Her twin? A simpering simulacrum? Why can't she _remember_?)

One possibility is that she herself is simply stressed out of her wits. Between yesterday's diplomatic débâcle, the voices in her head, and the swarms of carnivorous undead, who's to say that she's not simply hallucinating this whole second scenario? The only other person who “saw” Marth this second time was Frederick. And she sent him back to camp. It's always a possibility.

She stops walking, picks up a stone, tosses it. Perhaps she's out here while everyone else has returned to camp, warm and recuperating while she's chasing after a shade from her mind. There's a chance that they have yet to realise that she's missing. She could go back before they realised the truth. Before they realised that she has gone roaming in pursuit of an exhaustion-induced phantasmagoria.

It's always a possibility because Chrom had said _father_ in a way like he didn't know what was going on, and yet he had gone to talk alone with that young woman without so much as the leave of his wife. Because what are the chances that someone can save someone from two assassination attempts? And why has Marth followed them all the way here to Carrion Island? How could she have managed that?

All of it seen like this, Robin can't help but giggle at the absurdity of it. Of course she must be making it up, all of this is coming from an over-active mind careening off course. Chrom would never do something that could so easily be misconstrued an indiscretion. The Marth from before had had too much composure before to allow such a careless slip in decorum.

Yet the apparent shift in the woman's manner today is a piquant, pertinent detail, not quite a sudden slip but a loosing of her tight control over herself. Robin can't evade that observation no matter how exhaustion-addled her brain is. And more than that Marth had been emotional more than once, she clearly has feelings and—

And then Robin hears the sobs of another young female.

They're loud enough to reach her over the babbling of the creek she has no mind to comprehend.

Suddenly confounded, Robin resumes walking towards the distressed sounds. And she tries to clear her head: these are not the sound of her husband's opprobrium, they are the sounds of a misunderstanding. Simple enough, she tells herself. Marth's simply confused, prophetic as she may be.

That's a likely possibility. All that's needed is a rational explanation that resembles something like sense, just as soon as she warns them to be wary of giving birth to rumours.

 

.

 

Robin's beyond exhausted. There's a kind of taxation on one's quintessential identity that's inherent with world-shattering revelations. That undergoing two such revelations within a twenty-hour span is fatiguing, both mentally and viscerally, only goes without saying. Throw in an adult daughter who hasn't touched her parents for nearly eight years—distanced by war and time and death and self-imposed rules—and Robin's slumping into her husband is understandable. The public nature of the camp's fire is irrelevant. While others move around them, father and mother and daughter sit in close conversation.

Though presently the mother is dozing. She isn't supporting her own weight.

“So you're headed to Valm, now?” Lucina asks her father. She ignores the bowl of pottage cooling in her hands.

“That's the plan as it stands. Is something amiss?”

“No. ...Well, it's to be expected. Events have already been accelerated, changed as they are. Some of the changes aren't things I could have guessed, nor do I know what they may portend. For one thing, I don't recall such large numbers of Plegian ships being given to the cause.”

“And the Risen conveniently giving us pursuit after our meeting with Validar?”

“It's known that someone was working against you at all times,” Lucina says, her voice obviously troubled. “The assassin.”

“Of course,” Chrom says, and he then falls silent for a moment. He takes it to look at his daughter. He's still obviously, openly marvelling at the sight of her. He looks proud, so eager, and so young. And yet, Lucina reminds herself, she cannot expect too much from this man. Or from this woman, who lies against him. They're her family. They're like her parents from her memories. They've accepted her readily with open arms and love. And yet—and yet they are not yet who her parents will become. Who they became. They are different people.

_Remember that._

And yet, she's starting to regret that she hadn't revealed herself earlier. What would have been different, what would have been easier, she wonders selfishly.

 

…

 

Robin's not sure what to think. The beast before her seems tame enough, Cordelia's more than capable, and it had seemed like a good idea earlier. There are pros and no cons. But, standing there, she cannot bring herself to get up onto the pegasus.

The animal looks at her from the side as it chews some grass. Its head is lowered. It seems demure, if not unimpressed and not particularly interested.

“She won't hurt you,” Cordelia says to Robin.

Robin nods. “I know that. I know. It's just—uh. A feeling. I feel nauseous already just thinking about flying.”

“Perhaps you're afraid of heights, and you've forgotten as much,” Cordelia offers helpfully.

“That's probably it.” The pegasus paws at the ground, going nowhere.

Meanwhile Robin shivers. She squeezes her thighs together, and huddles in on herself to show that she's cold in her riding attire. It's a distraction for some seconds. “How can you manage to fly in such clothing? It must be so cold up there.”

“When you're flying you hardly notice. You'll sweat quite a bit, actually, especially in combat.”

“And yet this uniform—it's so impractical. Sometimes I wonder why this army's women are only half-dressed,” Robin says, but the comment apparently makes little impression on Cordelia. Or Cordelia doesn't know herself and doesn't bother thinking about it.

She shrugs her shoulders and caresses her pegasus's neck.

“Whatever you're wearing, you can't ride a pegasus unless you get on her first.”

“That's true,” Robin says. Now she's forced to look at the pegasus because Cordelia is looking at her, expectant but infinitely patient. Something that Robin wishes Cordelia would be a bit more towards her own self.

Still, they only have a certain amount of time. The plan is to restock in Port Ferox before a part of their forces head north; Robin had seen to the details herself. Before setting off to Valm they'll be investigating a site to the north, some ruins that are rumoured to carry an actual physical vestige of Naga. Some kind of artefact, some kind of weapon, some kind of spell—regardless, it obviously has great worth to their cause even if only one of exalted blood may be able to use it. And while retrieving it, there's time for new weapons and proper armour to be made, and there will be time for all of the Plegian ships to arrive. There will be no excusing stragglers by the time they return.

Because they will be going to the north, taking as many pegasi as possible had seemed a pleasant proposition. So Robin had decided it was finally time to learn to fly. She has seen Plegian units casting spells from pegasi-back. She has also read that pegasi are much less likely to throw their riders, become spooked, and die in battle. So, safer than other mounts. She has (presumably) re-learnt how to ride a normal horse, so this ought not be a problem.

And yet here she is.

Finally, Cordelia says, “Why not take a break and steel yourself? You stay here and get to know her, and I'll be right back. I think I know something that might help.”

Loath as she is to admit special need, Robin nods. “Surely you don't need to bother. But if I were to just have a few moments with her—to bond.”

Cordelia hands the reins to Robin. She says, “I'll be back,” and disappears into the vastness of their army's encampment outside Port Ferox.

Robin considers the animal for a moment—white, elegant, serene as a proper lady. The pegasus's temperament can't help but evoke in Robin a sort of maternal pride that has been out spilling everywhere on everything since the revelation of her daughter. The dignity, the poise, the naturalness of her beauty. And, like Lucina too, there's something here that's challenging, that's intolerant of nonsense; the golden rule of flying is self-removed, self-aware calmness. Contradictory as it, Robin somehow understands it.

She leans into the animal, stroking at her mane. “You're such a beautiful girl, you know. If anything this little difficulty is my fault, not yours.”

A pause.

She says louder, sensibly, “So don't take it personally.”

“Oh, I don't think she would,” Chrom says behind her.

Robin dreads. The pegasus worries her head and snorts in her hair.

“Shouldn't you be at a council,” Robin says over her shoulder.

He just laughs as he comes over to where she is. “I _was_ at one. I reiterated your plans once more, answered some questions, and that was it. When you're not around to clarify and confirm every single detail that no-one's asking about, councils seem to move a little more quickly.” (He stands behind his wife, touches her shoulder to indicate that she doesn't need to apologise, he's ribbing at her.) “And since I've a bit of time free now before my next engagement, I thought I would help my wife learn to fly.”

“You already helped me re-learn riding.”

“So I've got experience. What better candidate to be your personal trainer!” Chrom says. “Cordelia thought as much herself.”

“Yes. ...A little confidence booster. I have been taught that these things help, even when we know that we can manage without them.”

Robin looks up at her husband. There's trust in her eyes, but something else. Not quite pleading, not quite questioning, not quite thanks. Not quite vulnerability either, but Cordelia still looks away from the moment they share.

“So, ready to get up and at'em?” Chrom asks. He takes a step back.

“Yes. I... I should stop wasting time,” Robin says. She moves, and as she gets up his hand is under her elbow, his other hand somewhere on her waist. She's settled by the time he has hoisted himself up after her.

His hands go to her waist again. This time settling securely, as his head lingers a moment on her shoulder.

“It's the same as riding, only you're going to go a little higher. The motion in your body will feel familiar.”

“And there's a greater distance to fall,” she says flatly.

“And there's a smarter beast to catch you,” Chrom says. “Assuming she likes you, of course, and obviously you two are already quite fond of each other.”

Robin _hmm_ s and shifts, and she takes the reins that Cordelia hands to her again. She holds her breath. _One_. Her mind's full of static things—wizened hoary trees, sturdy castles, the good ground.

 _Two_.

“Think of yourself as my Caeda,” Chrom whispers, and Robin urges the pegasus and kisses to it, and in a trice they are airborne. The motion leaves her stomach falling, falling until they level out at a galloping pace somewhere above the earth. Perhaps they have gone a little too high, for they rush through a mass of cloudy stuff.

Then the world opens up for them. A sea of air is beneath them.

“That makes me feel weird!” she says abruptly.

“Yes, it's humbling to see such a—“

“No, not that,” she declares to him against the wind. “Your Caeda—I'm Marth's mother, you know.”

“It's the thought that counts, surely!”

“Maybe,” she shouts. “Up here, it's hard to think anything!” All she can really concentrate on is the pace of the pegasus rolling through her body, up and down and up, moving. That takes most of her attention off of the blue, glowing void growing between her and the earth. The rest of her is occupied by the presence at her middle, the protection at her back.

 

…

 

Whatever caused this place's desolation, it's time that has ruined it. About them are strewn cyclopean blocks and broken structures that have crumbled and eroded. They have not been knocked over or toppled by some malevolent force, they have only been worked upon by indifferent ones. And time's relentless march, that leaves everything trampled underneath.

Chrom suspects that this is a place that was made by Manakete. That would explain the vastness of its size and scale, and its apparent life-span, though the thought doesn't help much in explaining the Risen that have infested it. They must not have originated from here. Followed his army, maybe, or perhaps migrated in search of prey.

He's trying currently not to think too heavily about something as abstract as the place's history. There are other more concrete things to focus upon—to orientate himself around the Risen so that they don't get at him, to try and re-learn what time of day it is, for the longer span of days up here in the north is not something he knows how to contend with. Has their battle lasted an hour or ten? Cutting through Risen doesn't provide an answer.

He catches occasional glimpses of the others: his wife rising above the ruins with a spell ready to cast, a flash of Nowi's breath reflected upon surfaces of smooth white stone. There are daemonic howls. Nor is Frederick too far behind him, though it's Chrom who has taken point. The two of them push through the Risen like pushing through warm wax. This is how Chrom is becoming dissociated from the flow of battle, lost in the midst of his surroundings.

Then he turns round a heap of stone onto a new blue platform, and there's a boy before him. Fourteen, thirteen at a glance, and blue-haired. Compelling. And capable—smart. He's obviously thinking of his position as he takes higher ground against a gaggle of Risen to cast spells at them from safety.

Is the boy poignantly familiar? He realises it's not a question of _is_ , but a question of _why is_. Why is this boy familiar to him?

Chrom easily cuts through the Risen, doesn't think twice about assisting the boy who's obviously human and alive.

Immediately, Chrom's confronted with a happy, “Hello there! Who are you?”

“I would ask you the same,” Chrom says without a bit of irony. He doesn't distrust the child. It's not the boy, it's the circumstances that have him on edge. He keeps his focus on the brown eyes of the curious child. He does it, no matter how awkward it's becoming. “What are you doing here?”

The blue-haired enigma stumbles, his age achingly apparent.

Chrom feels horrible for interrogating a child. And guilty. For without his confidence, the boy's greatly reduced in size. Such is the effect of his youth: in control in one moment, cowering in the next. Regardless of how wary he should be now, Chrom finds himself offering the boy a sympathetic frown as he descends, nervy, from his pile of rocks.

“I woke up...sprawled in a field. I can't recall anything before that. I tried to find somewhere safe, but then these monsters came, so I really did pick a poor place.”

Again, the frown. Chrom also grunts despite himself, and the déjà vu is just too much to conceptualise for a moment. Chrom focusses on the phrase, I _think I remember my name_? If only Chrom could roll his eyes at fate.

Morgan introduces himself. Chrom offers his name in reply, though his qualifications are much more colourful: “I'm Chrom. And finding amnesiacs is apparently my special talent. I met someone very dear to me under similar circumstances.”

Suddenly, the boy's bright again. He inquires further.

At the mention of Chrom's wife, the boy utterly brightens. His happiness flares up, having stumbled upon someone unexpected and sacred in the unrelenting, unknowable darkness. Something in Chrom flattens, is flattened by the wave of the boy's enthusiasm washing over him with it's force and hidden turbulence.

As Chrom composes himself, he's suddenly extremely grateful that Frederick has somehow not caught up with him yet. (Where is he? But Chrom can't even be bothered with what's in his peripheral vision at the moment, so Frederick will have to handle himself for a bit.) The knight would surely urge a modicum of caution. But the child has his own hair colour, and in mannerisms he is his mother's undeniable doppelgänger. The only thing that could evince it further would be to hand the boy Falchion for a test swing or two. But that, that would be irresponsible.

Chrom urges Morgan to heed him. When he's sure it's safe, he says slowly, “You're my son.”

Of course the boy remembers none of it. Not his father, not his sister, not his future—just his mother whom he so dramatically resembles. Regardless, Chrom's the giver and receiver of an earnest, enveloping embrace. It doesn't occur to either of them to doubt the veracity of Chrom's statement.

Disoriented as he is, Chrom at least has an aim for the rest of the battle. He keeps his son out of skirmishes, he keeps his son safe. He reunites his family when all is said and done.

 

**.**

 

“He certainly has your eyes,” Chrom says to his wife. They are riding side by side for part of the way back down to Port Ferox. Lucina and Morgan share a horse. There was no spare brought for an unexpected son.

“Yes. And your hair,” she offers.

“And your mind.”

They look at each other. She watches him watching her. At her side she keeps the recovered Tear of Naga—it's presence nips at her conscious even in this moment. It's simply there. Like her son, and her daughter.

“Chrom. We're parents.”

“Yes,” he says, and it sounds like the most wonderful thing.

“I don't think I could be more proud,” Robin says softly, moved. “Of them—of you. Us.”

Rocking with the movements of her horse, Robin relaxes for a moment and closes her eyes. The route they will follow unfolds on a map in her mind. From here, to the port, to the sea. Then to Valm, ferried by foreign ships. Along with their forces she can envision her children coming along to a new land.

Beyond her closed eyes she hears Chrom say loudly, “Lucina, keep your brother on that horse!”


	2. A diversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin has to step aside for a moment.

Recently Robin has taken to riding into battle. Her mount is a pegasus, chosen and purchased for her steadfastness and docility, both slow to shy and pleasant to amateurs riders. The pegasus is a deep black that Robin calls to herself void. She imagines that this proud plumage is what makes black pegasi more resistant to magic, that they've some kind of hidden depths veiled inside them that reaches and yawns, and this is all plain to see right there on their coats. And, if she gazes long enough without shaking her head, she will begin to see herself looking back with a maniacal joy twisting her features. But humans are safe from being consumed by this abyss, she knows, because the pegasis can only absorb magic, they cannot absorb the energy of life. Which is lucky, Robin thinks, for she's convinced that there have been black pegasi that have wanted to snack on her soul.

Robin has been riding more and it has left her more sore than ever. When they are on the move she rides a normal brown mare with a sensible gait and two white socks. Yet now marching has become gruelling for her. Not to mention occasionally agonising, in the moments when she is half-way through a new stratagem, it's still theoretical but she's on the verge of seeing it becoming practical, and then the whole thing's shot through with searing scarlet, and the soreness in her thighs can no longer bear being ignored. Then a heaviness descends on her mind and she becomes agitated.

She shifts and grumbles in her saddle. Chrom,who usually rides near or besides her, always has a look of inquiry ready for her. His head is slightly tilted to one side. There's clear tension in his brow, and concern slightly widens his eyes.

She just shakes her head, simultaneously endeared and shamed. “It's nothing. Just a thought.”

And then she says what she knows he likes to hear, because it reaffirms his profound confidence in her, “I thought I had an idea, but I can have a better one.”

“Kept at it, then. Don't mind me,” he says, and with a smile trots ahead to find the kids.

By the time that stopping for the day is reasonable, Robin's physically exhausted. When she dismounts she almost stumbles, but she has abseiled on the right side of her horse and is blocked from Chrom's view. He can't see her state. Can't witness how her control waivers like she's ready to collapse.

Robin trudges to Frederick. Together they make plans and give directions for setting up camp. He, who's used to training those with weaker stamina, notices her condition and says nothing about it, but he walks slower than he usually does, and they are both aware of this allowance he makes for her. Robin thinks that she will increase her number of squats when she's more recovered.

Then they are on what is now the western perimeter of their camp, and Robin realises that she has to urinate. A low burning is blooming, like a rash, out of sight but still mortifying. The urgency pricks at her concentration until she finally holds her breath and stares at Frederick's left pauldron. There's several new scratches he's yet to buff out. They must be from their latest skirmish, fought today.

He's asking her about how to handle any camp followers tonight.

“Tell them there's no business here. Most of our army's married anyway.”

“As my milady knows, marital status hardly matters to them.”

“Happily married, then.” Robin bites her lip. Her vision's going red. “And quite a lot of them've full-grown kids. What kind of one-night stand wants that kind of baggage?”

“I don't believe that this is something that matters, either.”

No longer able to stand still, Robin takes a step away from Frederick. It doesn't seem out of place for she sighs at the same time, with a little flutter of her eyes that tells what she thinks of this matter. So far coupling hasn't been a causing for concern. This perhaps speaks to the quality of their company, or to the youth of the many marriages.

“Well then just warn the prostitutes that we won't protect them from the Risen. Their deaths would be tragic, yes, but with so much danger prowling around at night already, we have enough to deal with looking out for our own skins—so us warding them away is for their own protection. And you can tell them whatever else you think will work.”

“As you will, milady.”

Frederick bows to her and departs to attend to some task, and thus he bows out of her awareness. Now there's just the forest that's around them. She walks directly into it and looks for a rock or a large tree or a bush that strikes her as sizeable enough for ample protection. There's plenty of coarse woody debris that's moss-grown and randomly arranged, but so far nothing that she can accept as adequate. She passes a fern that comes to her waist but is far from luscious, a game trail that wends off unpromisingly, a log that's strewn with faintly menacing mushrooms, and a spray of indigo wild-flowers closing for the evening.

Her standards might need to quickly lower, she thinks. She's aware that she's step by step getting farther away from camp with greater risk of running into something she doesn't want to. Also, there's the additional natural screening of distance she now takes into account. The green shade of the forest has become cool gloom on the cusp of transforming into complete darkness. (And, behind some tree out here, there is someone waiting for her who is not her but _is_ her mirror image with nothing but dark intentions.)

Then her attention alights upon a fallen tree that's trunk is mercifully thick as a horse—or a pegasus, white or black, that's well-kept. The tree is in any case large enough because it's more than a rotting log. There's a gnarled branch she can hold onto when she lowers herself in case her aching legs give out beneath her, or refuse to raise her up, or it takes her time. The branch might be slimy to touch, but this slightly unpleasant sensation's not enough to be a possible deterrent.

She pauses a moment to scan for Risen. There's nothing to see.

She reaches the other side of the felled tree. She comes around the tortured roots splayed out into the air, she walks past a hole that gapes to her left, she comes around and there's someone already there. Someone is dead against the tree, leaning back, with a deflated face turned upwards. It takes her a moment to process that this person isn't looking at the sky. Those aren't eyes, those are the bones of the skull exposed.

She's silent.

And then she decides to remain so out of respect.

As she squats her pain flares up. But her gripes, still in her head, seem irrelevant. Her discomfort is predictable and will pass. Anything she has to complain about seems petty in the presence of this person. Or in the presence of this corpse that can't see her pee. It has no eyes after all.

She wonders why she hadn't smelt it on approach. Perhaps she _had_ , but simply had overlooked it in her determination. Now her own smells are too present for her to make any proper speculation. She can't even smell the soil.

Somewhere a raven caws.

Her business done, she heads back to camp. Robin starts to limp. And as she gets closer, she can let herself slow down a bit, to hobble around bits of undergrowth rather than trampling over them, to stop and stare after a bat that swoops to her side, to linger and confirm that all breaking branches are beneath her feet. But soon she'll be sure to show no weakness at all in the presence of others.  


End file.
